A Thankful Heart Is A Peaceful Heart

 

Hey, don’t we all just need a little peace today to quiet our minds and souls before a Saviour who came so humbly, to give it so generously?

The word Peace, is a Jewish greeting and in Hebrew ~ “shalom” captures the spirit of Jesus’ work on this old earth to restore peace and quiet the hearts of sinful people who tend to go their own way and mess things up quite readily. Yeah, we tend to want to do it our way and so we do and so we find ourselves in many places of unrest, experiencing anything but His blessed peace that transcends beyond our understanding and beyond our circumstances.

God’s work of peace to restore humanity’s relationship to God was fulfilled in the birth of the Messiah, the cross and the glorious resurrection of our Saviour! Oh yeah, we have so much to be thankful for, yet we forget to be thankful and our desire for more undermines our gratefulness as we enter into the pit of arrogance and pride rather than peace. Our desire for our rights, our power, our authority, and our desire for more this and more that, rob us of God’s generous and luxurious gift of peace!

It is a luxury but ‘Self’ is our own worst enemy, our worst deceiver, our worst liar and our worst false god. Succumbing to ‘self’ while aspiring for the top, ironically sets us on a downward spiral of unrest, uneasy and undone!

Feeling uneasy, and fearful, today in this crazy world? In your crazy world? Get alone with the Saviour who came to lavish you with peace and usher it into the hearts and lives of humanity. It’s there for you, close the self door and step into it! Claim it, and walk on in the beauty and pure bliss of it.

Philippians 4: 6, 7, 8
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think on these things.…”

2 Timothy 1:7
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

John 14:27
“I am leaving you with a gift–peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a peace that the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid…”

#Peace#Shalom#Advent 

A Life God Can Use

A ‘Daniel’ life, out there and exposed to God’s glory, quickens every nerve ending. It’s not a pain-free life! There will be fiery trials; maybe not the literal fiery furnace noted in the book of Daniel, but hard things that try the very soul of us to see what we’re made of and how deep our faith really goes. A ‘Daniel’ life is not a ‘safe-at-a-distance’ life! There will be lion’s dens to be thrown into and lions roaming about to take us down in defeat! Yet, the thing is, it is the life most alive and most abundant life because in all the things that come and go, our Lord is present in the fires, and floods and walks there always to deliver His own.

Daniel represents more than character. He represents a life God can use wildly in the worst of circumstances…

What role does fear play in your life? Does it keep you at a distance? The enemy will tangle with us as long as we let him. so, beautiful one, go out on a limb for the Lord who presents in our struggles. Fear God and nothing else. Set your mind on Him. Let Him lead!

#Lovedandbroken #Safeinahardplace

For Such A Time As This

With coronavirus on the rise, panic sends the world reeling into a frenzy. The outbreak of a pandemic has wrapped it’s icy fingers around its corners and countries and nations that man appears to have no control of. If only we would have used our intelligence from the beginning and taken care in the market places and in the handling of wildlife for food, perhaps not going there at all, would have been the starting point for nipping such a viral affliction in the bud. After the swine flu and the bird flu and whatever else came along, We are still slow learners aren’t we?

Perhaps when symptoms surfaced and the COVID -19 shouted loud and clear that it was on the rise and rapidly spreading, travel should have been banned on all fronts. Yet it wasn’t! Instead, the economy shouted “money” and “fun” called, so the world took flight and took sail and went wherever they desired, only some, to find themselves returning home with symptoms that tested positive. So now was the time to quarantine. Let’s place them out of reach for a time, while all those they had already come in contact with, go to their homes, their workplaces, their schools, and their circles of influence to watch still more symptoms surface! Yet, we heard from the media, that officials were doing all they could do to smash this bug and nip it in bud.

Yeah, we sit in our brilliance and our intelligence and yet, we lack so much common sense. Now, our world sits in fear as the numbers rise and the death bell tolls. What should our reaction be to this monster that rages around the world? We tend to choose a side, and either appear complacent for fear of what others will think of us, or we take action and appear paranoid. Friends, God has not lost control, but man has and fear and panic are aggressively on the rise! Recession is looming and disease is rampant and God looks on and pities us in our weak, human and finite frames. I’m so thankful He shows mercy to our pitiful condition and showers unending grace over our downfalls. When we think we’re so smart, we’re not, and when we think we’re in control, we’re not, and when the rubber really meets the road, we try to put on the brakes to stop it but we can’t, because we didn’t try soon enough. We let our selves, our fun, our money and our economy get in the way. We did what we did because we desired it and now we’ve fallen flat on our faces with recessions and lockdowns.

As believers, we need to find peace in this chaos and be a calming, stabilizing and balancing influence, but at the same time, we need to use the brains and the common sense that our loving God gives for such a time as this. Let’s be challenged to cut down the risk of spreading by not travelling or at the very least by quarantining ourselves when returning from excursions to other countries! To naively wait for symptoms to show, is redundant because by then it’s way too late and we’ve already infected with others with our contact.

Canadians are so far, fortunate enough to not have COVID -19 spread too far, but if individuals don’t do their part, use common sense, perhaps stay home and away from crowds, shopping malls, and events, it will spread rapidly and Canada will be sucked into the downward spiral of COVID-19! We can be so thankful for the selfless health workers and all those working around the clock to help the afflicted and try to make them comfortable, but they’re garbed and robed and protected as best they can be. The rest of us? Well, we need to do our part too. If we’re not health care, we need to be strong and refrain from spreading it. How can we be strong in this thing? It doesn’t mean we take on a bull in a china shop mentality and live in denial. Perhaps our strength comes in selflessness, by taking a stand and refusing to do things we so don’t want to give up. Solomon reminds us, ‘If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small’ (Prov. 24:10). Friends, we can’t faint and give up or give in to this thing, nor can we be paranoid and run in fear, however, we have to be smart and strong. Fun things like eating out, drive-throughs, mall shopping, and places where people are in close proximity, in my mind are the breeding grounds for a rampant rise. Who knows who’s been where, who they’ve been in contact with and where those fingers have been that just handed you that cup of coffee so nonchalantly in the drive-through? Yeah, I’ve watched them, hand over coffee cups with fingers all over the drinking spout. It sounds small and kind of crazy but it’s ‘real’ people. Today, the virus is a reality that’s touched down around the globe and it’s a reality where lives are at stake.

As believers, we need not fear or panic. We can rejoice in adversity and be thankful, for we know that all things are Father filtered and beautiful souls we are confident in our Hope of heavenly glory! We need not fear! Yet, at the same time, we can deny ourselves a few things that may be harmful to ourselves or others. To stay away from the fun takes a strong countenance because our frail human nature is to want what we want, and sometimes at all cost. So, wherever we are on the scale today, right now, in this place where we find ourselves, let’s do our part to do all we can to keep this thing on the down-low and stop it! Just me, Just sayin’!

‘If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small’ Proverbs 24:10.

“Rejoice always and pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God, in Christ Jesus for you.”
1 Thessalonians 5: 16 – 18

Peace For The Road

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So there might be a whole lot fear heaped up ahead on the road you travel right now and panic might be driving the motor car and it’s reeling out of chaotic control, heading right to your doorstep. And there it sits heavy on your shoulders, smack dab in the middle of that heap of fear! It’s got you pinned underneath it’s weight and yeah, the old saying that “No news is good news” is really true after all, because just maybe you got news and it wasn’t good! No news was better wasn’t it? And it’s processing in our heads and our hearts right now and it’s a difficult place with hard steps and I wonder what it is it that has caused panic and fear to emerge with such force to make you want to throw in the towel and run fast in the other direction?

Peace_edited-1
We can’t do it! We can’t run away! We can’t run anywhere and as matter of fact we can’t even walk away because our story is our story and it’s us and it’s ours to deal with. So we can’t make a get-a-way except straight into the outstretched arms of Jesus and step into His peace, even right where we are! You gotta know He’s got this. Your stuff has been Father filtered and even though it’s tough, it has His stamp of approval for this moment, and even though it’s a hard place, He has it and He has your back and He has unlimited grace enough to get you through. So beautiful soul, when the brokenness is harsh and the news is bleak and the pain is unbearable, and the mind can’t focus, rest gently in the nail pierced hands of the Savior, the Sovereign One who knows the pain. Yeah, for sure the One who spoke peace into the vicious storms and calmed the raging waters can and will whisper peace into your panic.

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Mark 4: 38 – 40
“Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”…

John 14: 27
“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”